alive in dreams

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

A random place and time just popped into my head, like my mind's eye was transported back in time while the rest of me stayed put in this leather desk chair, but just for a bittersweet moment. I was suddenly in the blue bedroom of my maternal grandparents' house, spending the night, one summer night, at least 15 years ago.

This happens occasionally. A smell, the look of an object, a word clucked, or the turn of a phrase, and my mind goes on a scavenger hunt, looking for clues to its familiarity. All the sudden I'll see a time and place long gone, usually somewhere I haven't thought of in a long, long time, or at least haven't thought of in that particular light. It's disarming and yet comforting.

Why that night this time? What's so special about that random night that it's been locked somewhere deep in my head until now? Something just happened (who knows what) that pulled it out of me. I remember the green light of that room at night, how it flooded through the lace-curtained windows from the street light outside, bounced off the tin-type photographs and cross-stitched pictures in their wooden frames, accentuated the curves of the carved Victorian furniture, and gave the room an eerie glow. I remember my grandfather softly snoring in the next room, me awake, uncomfortable in a bed not my own, and too excited about staying with them to sleep. I even remember being smaller, what it felt like to stretch out and not cover even half the length of the bed, what it was to have little hands and fingers and feet and toes.

I'm grateful for these moments, grateful that they're still a part of me. I suppose everything that I've ever experienced is locked up somewhere in here. Oh to be one of those people that never forgets! I would replay conversations with my grandfather over and over, listen to his voice, look at his face, and feel loved again as only he could love me. Why do I not capture these things while people are still alive? I knew he was dying, but I didn't force myself to ask the questions I wish I had asked, and I didn't make myself remember more.

The other night in a dream, I was swinging lazily on the swing set he built for me and my brothers in his backyard when I was a child, feeling a spring breeze, watching his enemies, the squirrels, chew on his walnuts, being at peace. I knew he was behind me on his large screen porch. Although I didn't see him, I knew. I want to return there every night, at least for a moment, in a dream. I visit lots of places, seemingly random-- our London flat, a childhood bedroom, a friend's backyard-- both in waking and sleeping dreams, but if I had a choice, I'd be there with him, before life became life.